independent filmmaker

In 1996, what the Chinese could see was a large expanse of bright rose red.The labor contract system was established, and national pride was unprecedentedly high. In May, "China Can Say No" attracted national attention, and the first printing of 5 copies was sold out.

In the world, in July, the Atlanta Olympic Games opened, and Wang Junxia won China's first long-distance running gold medal. In September, the "Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty" was born, and all countries could not continue to conduct nuclear tests.

In this area of ​​cinema, several big things happened one after the other.

First of all, on January 1 of this year, the movie channel officially launched.It is not a program operated by CCTV itself, but a channel opened by the Film Bureau with a loan of 1 yuan. It just uses the "CCTV" logo, and CCTV provides the CCTV brand.However, its ratings quickly climbed to the second place, second only to CCTV-50.

Then, in March, the National Film Work Conference was held in Changsha, Hunan.The meeting decided to implement the Chinese film "3 Project", which is to produce 9550 excellent films during the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" period, 50 films per year.In addition, in order to support the film industry, this meeting also increased the so-called "special fund for film", changing the charge of 10 cents per ticket to 5% for each ticket, and giving special subsidies to films with special significance to support film production. Out of boutique.

On June 6st, xxx promulgated the "Film Management Regulations", which is also the first step in the film industry's legal management. Among them, Chapter 1 involves the content of "Film Censorship", which is based on the "Interim Regulations on Film Censorship" (3), it stipulates that uncensored films shall not be distributed, shown, imported, or exported, and it also prohibits films that "endanger..." "endanger..." "incite... to destroy... …” “Leaking……” “Promoting……, superstition or exaggerating violence” “Defamation and insulting others” “Other content prohibited by the state” These seven parts. On July 1993, the Film Review Committee and the Film Review Committee were established.These two committees are the functional agencies of the government to implement review, responsible for film review and decide whether they can pass.

The regulations also clearly stated that if unauthorized filming, screening, or exporting without permission will result in the confiscation of illegal items and illegal income, and a fine of 5-15 times, of which, unauthorized filming is 5-10 times, unauthorized It is 10-15 times more expensive for screening or exporting, and the license may be revoked, and even criminal charges may be pursued. Xie Lansheng is still a little worried.It also stipulates that it is not allowed to go to other countries to develop, produce, go to participate in film festivals, or open film festivals by yourself. All illegal gains will be confiscated and fined.

In addition, in the "Film Management Regulations", the right to film production is further liberalized. It says, "The state encourages agencies, enterprises, institutions, and other social groups and individuals to participate in film production in the form of funding and investment." film", that is to say, all units, groups and individuals can participate. The reform in 1995 only broke the monopoly of 16 film studios, allowing a large number of provincial-level film studios and some social legal persons to also film. In 1996, even "individuals" were recognized.In addition, "those with an investment of 70% can be jointly filmed with a studio with production rights" is reduced to "30%".Making a film still requires a factory standard, and the studio is still the dominant player. Other units want to participate and buy an index from the studio—30 to 50. Screenings on behalf of the studio.

This year, Xie Lansheng did not create.He is already a great director, and he will not start shooting as soon as he has an idea, as before. If the new film cannot contain new things and cannot break through the previous works, Xie Lansheng will not do it.So, in 1996, he conceived works while talking about love, and he was not in a hurry.

In the middle of the year, King Xinye bought a house in "Xiangjiang Garden" in Chaoyang District. The house was just built in 1996. It has two floors and five bedrooms.Xie Lansheng spends half of his time living with Xinye, and the other half at his own home. Xie Lansheng's mother, Li Jingrou, feels that her son is always outside, but Xie Lansheng only says that he is preparing a new movie and is on a business trip to see the scenery.

At the end of 1996, when Xinye was planning to start his own film company, his mother was diagnosed with a serious illness, so Xinye suspended work and returned to the United States to be with his mother.He took on some management work in his stepfather's hotel group and also learned a lot of management experience.He was quite tired from running around, flying to China every two weeks, spending two days with Xie Lansheng, or even just one day.

Xie Lansheng also really loves him.

…………

1997 was an important year for China.

On February 2, Deng Xiaoping passed away in the 19 Hospital. After all, he failed to realize his ""walk around our own land and take a look". "Hello, Xiaoping" banners were displayed all over the country, and the whole of China The first half of the year was immersed in sadness.

On July 7, Hong Kong returned to China.In the eyes of the Chinese, this symbolizes washing away humiliation, and coincidentally, it rained heavily that night. At 1:6 on June 30, the Union Jack slowly lowered amidst the sound of the British national anthem. Charles Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, resigned and bid farewell to Hong Kong. Charles' sad eyes were reported by the Associated Press.

On October 10, Chinese President Jiang Zemin paid a state visit to the United States at the invitation of US President Clinton. This is also the first visit to the United States by a Chinese head of state in 26 years, which is of considerable significance.He visited seven cities. After the talks, China and the United States issued the "Sino-US Joint Statement."

Also, in June of this year, Ding Lei founded NetEase, with 6 employees and an office area of ​​3 square meters.He felt that China needed "email" and called the domain name "7".It was also this year that Zhang Chaoyang founded Sohu, a company that completely cloned Yahoo.

Within the scope of the world, the watershed has also come. In February, Soros sold the Thai baht to the overheated economy in Thailand, and the baht immediately fell all the way. On July 2, the Thai baht plummeted by 7% in one day, and the Asian financial crisis broke out.Not only Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, and Hong Kong have all become targets of attack. For example, the Korean won has fallen by 2% in just two months. Businesses have gone bankrupt, individuals are poor, and the economy is on the verge of collapse. People spontaneously donate jewelry .Neighboring countries were so miserable, so China was also affected. Many corporate buildings were overturned, and the scenery was no longer beautiful, and it ended sadly.

In the United Nations this year, Annan served as Secretary-General.Separately, scientists announced the successful cloning of a sheep named Dolly last year.

In the field of film, for the first time, a director shoots a film for a specific period and prepares for its release. So far, the term "Lunar New Year file" has appeared, and various files have followed.

In 1997, Xin Ye was in the United States all year round, and went back and forth every two weeks.

Xie Lansheng felt that it was time for him to make a film because he had been starved for a year, otherwise he would give birth, so he made "Sky Light", but he was not satisfied with it. He didn't participate in the exhibition, and he didn't sell the copyright. Since he didn’t make a movie, the officials thought he had become a good boy. Although he didn’t mention the lifting of the ban, he was granted his passport. Therefore, Xie Lansheng was able to go to Los Angeles to meet Xin Ye, and he could still live there. He went there every three months, every time Stay for a month.

However, Xie Lansheng was also anxious because he didn't make a better film than "Consummation".

…………

1998 was destined to be a tragic year.

In the summer, the upsurge of the World Cup in France swept across China in an instant, and everyone could sing a few lines of "GoGoGo, AleAleAle". In the end, the pinnacle of Brazil and the Netherlands met in the semi-finals, and the unfavorable host finally won the Hercules Cup.But immediately, a catastrophic flood hit China, which was once in a century, and 29 provinces were affected.Severe floods occurred in the entire basin of the Yangtze River, Nen River and Songhua River, and Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Heilongjiang and Jilin suffered the most.2.23 million people were affected, 4150 people died, and the direct economic loss was 2500 billion.In this disaster, the army regained its reputation. The soldiers built human walls and sandbags in the flood, and many soldiers died because of this, which impressed the whole country.

However, in such a natural disaster, it is necessary to fight the financial crisis.

At the beginning of the year, bird flu broke out in Hong Kong, and amidst such unease, on August 8, Soros and others stormed the Hong Kong dollar.Speculators continued to sell aggressively, and the long-short battle was unprecedentedly fierce. Hang Seng vented to 5 points, and its market value evaporated by 6600 million Hong Kong dollars. On August 2, with the support of Zhu Rongji, the Hong Kong government entered the stock and futures markets with a huge amount of foreign exchange, and directly fought against the funds. However, under the situation in 8, no one was optimistic about the Hong Kong government. The ocean is clamoring.At that time, the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong said that he shed tears silently, because this was the first time in history that the Hong Kong government intervened in the market, but he had to make this choice, and he did not believe that Hong Kong would lose. On August 13, the long-air decisive battle.The speculators wantonly shipped goods, the Hong Kong government accepted all the orders, and the Beijing government said it was "supporting". The international speculators did not have the confidence to fight against China and withdraw from Hong Kong. The whole process was thrilling.

Under such external and internal troubles, Zhu Rongji decided to promote real estate. He increased the loan amount and extended the loan period. At the same time, he banned the "welfare housing distribution" that had existed for 40 years. Since then, 20 years of skyrocketing growth have begun.

At the same time, the company's transformation ushered in a boundary.The central government stipulates that the property rights must be clear and the structure must be clear, and both management and ordinary employees are allowed to hold stocks.

This year, "Clinton" is a big hit.First, US President Clinton paid an official visit to China at the invitation of China. Secondly, the scandal between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was talked about, and "Internet" became a key word.

Also this year, the crazy little swallow once again caused crowds to empty out, and the last time it dates back to "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" in 1985.All young people in China go to Internet cafes to play "Xianjian".

Internationally, Google was born and the US attacked Iraq.

In the field of film, first of all, the Chinese government and Kodak hit it off—Kodak will buy the entire film industry in China for one billion US dollars to fight against Fuji in Japan, and at the same time, contribute technology to save the film industry in China.

In addition, "Titanic" produced in 1997 was released in China and raked in 3.6 million box office. This 3.6 million box office record dominated the championship for 11 years, and it was not broken until 2008.Everyone is talking about "Jack", "Meat Shredded" and "Titanic". Countless girls are deeply fascinated by such life-and-death love, and countless guys are blushing because of the nudity on the screen.Everyone has seen "Titanic". Even if they didn't go to the cinema to watch it, they rented a VCD to watch it at home.

In 1998, Xinye was still in the United States.

Xie Lansheng's movie "Consummation" was made into a VCD by a pirate. It has been widely circulated among movie lovers and has received good reviews. "Consummation" has really become a classic because of Xin Ye's interpretation, and even more because of Liu Yao's interpretation.

This year, Xie Lansheng did not shoot a new film, but put his main energy on the "Internet".

He established film forums and film communities.He first set up an online forum called "World Movies", aimed at ordinary netizens.As the moderator, Xie Lansheng's ID on the forum is "Ye Lan".He himself writes film reviews and analyzes on the forums, and he also asks his younger brothers and sisters from Nortel and even teachers from Nortel to write.And as soon as he saw a good film critic Xie Lansheng, he quickly improved.However, because it is a public forum, there are naturally mixed people, the quality of the posts varies, and the comments are always smoky.

Under such circumstances, Xie Lansheng established another forum among major universities in Beijing called "Youth Film", and the main users are students and graduates of Peking University, Nortel, China Opera, Beijing Canton and other universities. Their discussion was more high-end and more serious. Later, "youth film" was expanded to other famous universities in the country, such as Fudan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University.Xie Lansheng will push more literary movies on this forum, accounting for about 50%, including Chinese and foreign movies. On the "World Movies" forum, he mainly pushes Hollywood blockbusters and Hong Kong blockbusters, especially those that are currently being screened and those that have just been stolen. Hollywood blockbusters and Hong Kong blockbusters, occasionally interspersed with literary films.He hopes that people will watch more movies, so that their eyes will not be blind, their ears will not be blocked, and they will think more and discuss more.

With the springing up of Internet cafes, the forums of "Tianxia Movies" and "Youth Movies" have more and more users, and they are very popular. Xie Lansheng has also invested a lot of money in maintenance.It was also the first time he discovered that there are so many people who love movies.

Sometimes, he would find it interesting to see all parties meeting with each other, and think, oh, so these people think this way, and it turns out that those people have different opinions.In the fierce battle forum, there are often thousands of words and long articles. Xie Lansheng thinks that their enthusiasm for movies is really good.Moreover, Xie Lansheng also found that many movie lovers are quite high-level. They not only watch movies and comment on movies, but also analyze the current situation of Chinese movies and discuss the development of Chinese movies. They all look like experts and scholars.

Later, Xie Lansheng created sub-forums on "World Films", and also on "Youth Films", he built the "Mainland Movies" section, "Hong Kong Movies" section, "American Movies", "European Movies" section, and In the "Japanese Movies" section, some admirers were selected to become the moderators of the sub-forum, and several of them were young teachers who had just started work at Nortel.

Xie Lansheng usually only writes film reviews and analysis posts, and doesn't participate in random discussions. However, every time he sees a post like "Who is the best actor in China", he can't control himself and will rush in , using his moderator ID of "Ye Lan" to reply: "Xin Ye." "It's definitely Xin Ye." "It's [-]% Xin Ye." His point of view is like a fanatical fan of the actor Xin.

In addition to online forums, Xie Lansheng also established some "movie viewing groups" in various cities.He is the BOSS behind the scenes, and he doesn't show up, but just sends assistants such as Xiaohong and Xiaolu to organize activities, that is, organize everyone to go to cafes and other places to watch movies together.He founded more than [-] movie-watching groups, including the Beijing Movie-watching Group and the Shanghai Movie-watching Group, and worked hard to promote literary films, including Bunuel's and Fellini's. He would also show the movie-watching groups banned movies Independent films - he would borrow VHS tapes from Sun Fengmao, Li Kai and others and show them, and the fans in the viewing group would see them for the first time.After watching, the viewing group will organize everyone to discuss. At this time, everyone will come and go in full swing, and the atmosphere is very harmonious.

In the beginning, only the members of the group could know the schedule of activities, but later, Xie Lansheng would publish the schedule on the forums of "World Film" and "Youth Film", and later, Xie Lansheng discovered that some local media would publish these arrangements. In the newspaper, therefore, the number of participants in each event became more and more complicated, and Xie Lansheng was quite happy.He spent a lot of money on these movie viewing groups, bought equipment, rented venues, and invited moviegoers to drink coffee and eat snacks from time to time.

Sometimes, Lan Sheng would let Xiaohong and Xiaolu declare themselves as "guests" and join in the occasional activities of the movie viewing group.He will comment on the current movie in the discussion after watching the movie, so that people can fully understand the director's intention from a professional perspective.He found that the members of the group were very fond of listening to these things, and many young people also said that they wanted to be directors in the future and also wanted to take the Nortel exam.

In 1998, although it was busy, it was fulfilling.

…………

1999 was the turn of the century.

This year was not peaceful, with many things happening, and positive and negative emotions coexisted.

On May 5, xx bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, and three Chinese journalists were killed in the line of duty. xx said that the accidental bombing happened because the map was too old, and the Chinese people were angered.In the end, Clinton said "sorry", and the matter had to be left alone, but many ordinary people felt deeply humiliated.

On July 7, xxx said in an interview that xx and xx are special "country-to-country" relations.

In the stock market, "bankers" are rampant, all kinds of news are flying everywhere, and the average holding time of each person is only three months.

But then, everything seemed to turn around again.

The Chinese women's football team reached the final, and Sun Wen became a national idol.But then, on July 7, in the penalty shootout, the host team, the United States, won the championship, and the women's football dream was broken in the Rose Bowl.

This summer, colleges and universities expanded their enrollment.On the basis of expanding enrollment by 23 at the beginning of the year, the enrollment was expanded to 33.7, and the increase in happiness reached 42%, which is unprecedented. The college entrance examination is no longer a single-plank bridge crowded by thousands of troops.

In September, the pre-millennium "Fortune" annual meeting was held in China, with the theme of "Let China Know the World and the World Know China".

On October 10st, the 1th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the 50th anniversary military parade was held in *** Square, and everyone watched "Hello comrades", "Hello chief", "Comrades have worked hard" and "serve the people" in front of the TV.Also on October 50, the fifth set of RMB was issued.

On October 10, xxx was banned.

On November 11, China and the United States finally formally signed the bilateral agreement on "China's accession to the WTO".Prior to this, the agreement had been negotiated for more than a dozen rounds and more than 15 rounds. When the goal was approached several times, the US side had new requirements, and American companies complained a lot.

On November 11, Shenzhou-20, China's first unmanned spaceship, was launched in Jiuquan and successfully landed in Inner Mongolia. to watch the show before.

Then, on December 12th, Macao returned to China, and people could often hear the immature voice of "You know Macau is not my real surname" almost throughout the year. At midnight on December 20th, the flag of the People's Republic of China and the The regional flag of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China was hoisted at the Garden Pavilion of the Macao Cultural Center.

A few days later, Beijing held a grand event to welcome the millennium at the newly built China Millennium Monument. All the stars from all walks of life participated, and the lights lit up the entire sky.

This year is the first year of China's "E-era". China has 892 million Internet-connected computers and 2250 million Internet users.Everyone is watching "The First Intimate Contact", longing for online dating, yearning for online dating, and ganging up to go to Internet cafes.

Sina, Sohu, and NetEase were all successfully listed on NASDAQ. Ma Yun founded Alibaba, Ma Huateng founded Tencent, Li Guoqing and his wife Yu Yu founded Dangdang, and Chen Tianqiao founded Shanda.People started playing OICQ, adding strangers, and chat rooms.

Internationally, on the first day of the year, the Euro was born.

Then, on March 3, NATO bombed Yugoslavia, its first attack on a sovereign state.

And on the last day of this year, Russian President Yeltsin, who was deeply involved in scandals, resigned sadly and elected a new person to be his successor. This new person is called Putin.

Some people say that the earth will be destroyed before 2000, but many people believe it.

In this field of film, in order to be able to join the WTO, China promised in the WTO accession agreement between China and the United States to increase the number of blockbuster films imported from the original 10 to 20 per year, and the film market is forced to further open up.In the past few years, out of the need to protect national films, China's import share has remained at around 10.

Also in 1999, the DVD came out. DVDs are as cheap as VCDs, but they have larger capacity and higher picture quality. Chinese people have started to buy DVD players again.

…………

In this year, Xinye's mother fully recovered, and Xinye planned to return to China.

However, at the beginning of the year, a Chinese-American director wanted to make an "American-style martial arts" and invited Xin Ye to join in. Xin Ye nodded and planned to use it as the end of his career as an actor.Later, from April to September, Xin Ye was shooting this film, and he felt quite satisfied.

In October, he officially returned to Beijing, where he had been away for nearly three years, and founded a film company.

As a first step, he invested in two films, one martial arts and one comedy, all with his own funds.

However, Xie Lansheng, in this year when everyone is making martial arts films, is retrograde, and once again plans to shoot "Consummation"-like family realism, and still pays attention to the Chinese-style family collapse.

Everyone told him: "Director Xie, don't be stupid! There should be a huge market for martial arts films in China next year! The movie of the Best Actor of Xin University may cause a boom! If you can win awards, you can also win the box office!"

But Xie Lansheng just shook his head, and replied with a smile to everyone: "Of course costume films are very good, introducing tradition and culture. But..." Dun Dun, adding, "I also want the audience to know that in that distant country, there are ' In the country of wuxia, there are not only swords, lights, swords and shadows, happiness and hatred, but now, the common people living in the world have the same emotions, the same sorrows and joys as they do in the Western world."